Transmission speed-controlling mechanism.



F. W. WOODHULL.

TRANSMISSION SPEED CONTROLLING MECHANISM.

APPLIUATION FILED MAY 7, 1914.

Patented Mar. 80, 1915.

3 SHEETSSHEET 1.

Inveni 0r.

wzltne Sse& V fiederzb W PVOOd/LLLZL F. W. WOODHULL,

TRANSMISSION SPEED CONTROLLING MECHANISM.

APPLICATION FILED MAY 7. 1914.

Patented Mar. 30, 1915.

3 SHEETSSHEET 2- w 72 Invenon wzlfinessea fiederz'ck W VVbocZZZZZZZ- F.W. WOODHULL.

TRANSMISSION SPEED CONTROLLING MECHANISM. APPLIGATION FILED MAY 7. 1914.

90 v Patented Mar. 30, 1915.

3 SHEETSSHEET 3.

- Invem%o7-.

FREDEBICK W. WOODHULL, 0F ALHAMBRA, CALIFORNIA.

' Specification of Letters Patent.

TRANSMISSION SPEED-CONTROLLING- MEGHAN'ISM.

Patented Mar. 3%, 1915.

Application filed May 7, 1914. Serial No. 836,913.

nism, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to improvements in transmission,speed-controlling mechanism for motor-drlven vehicles, and hasparticular relation to means for bringing the clutch driven gears of atransmission mechanism, to the same speed as that of .the gears whichmove with the drive wheels of the vehicle, whereby the gears-may bechanged or shifted without endangering them, and irrespective of thespeed at which the vehicle may be traveling at the time of the change.

It is an object .of the invention to provide ameans within the controlof the operator of the vehicle, by which the driving-gear, or thatactuated by the clutch, may be brought to the same speed as the othergears of the transmission mechanism which are being rotated by themovement of the drive wheels of the vehicle, so that the gears,traveling at the same speed, will readily go into mesh without thedanger of stripping them.

It is also an object of the invention to provide a transmission speedcontroller for the gear which is driven by the clutch mechanism of anautomobile, whereby the gears will be caused to travel at the same speedwhen they are to be shifted and brought into mesh, means also beingprovided whereby the said speed controller must be operated by thechauffeur or operator, before he can shift the gears.-

It is a further object of the invention to provide a motor drivenvehiclewith a transmissionspeed controller capable of turning the clutch shaftof the vehicle so as to cause the gear actuated. thereby to assume thesame speed as the speed of the change gear with which it is to, mesh,and to further'provide the vehicle with a blocking device for the gearshifting lever whereby the gears which are to mesh must be brought toequal speeds.

With these and other objects in View the invention comprises certainnovel construcsaid lever being shown in section.

tions, combinations, and arrangements of parts, as will be hereinaftermore fully described and claimed.

In the accompanying drawings forming a part of this specification;Figure 1 is a top plan view of a transmission speed controllingmechanism, constructed in accordance with this invention, portions ofthe vehicle frame being broken away. Fig. 2 is a detail sectional viewtaken upon line 2-2 of Fig. 1. Fig- 3 is a detail sectional view takenupon line 3-3 of Fig. 1. Fig. 4 is a top plan view of a modifiedform oftransmission speed controlling mechanism, portions of the vehicle frame,andmecha-nism adjacent thereto being also illustrated. Fig. 5 is a topplan view of the rack bar employed for holding the transmission speedcontroller lever in its adjusted positions, the Fig- 6 is a detailsectional view taken upon line 6'6 of Fig. 5. Fig. 7 is adetail-sectional view taken upon line 7-7 ofFig. 4. F ig.y8 is ahorizontal sectional view taken through the blocking device employed forcontrolling the gear shift lever, portions of same" being shown inelevation, and the parts being all shown upon an enlarged scale. Fig. 9is a.

detail sectional view taken upon the line 9-4) of Fig. 8. Fig. 10 isa'vertical transverse sectional view taken upon the line 10 -10 of Fig.8. j

The mechanism of the present invention is designed to afi'ord a safetycontrolling means affecting the movement of the change gears in thetransmission mechanism of the ordinary .motor. driven vehicle,automobile, truck, or the like, so that no matter how rapidly thevehicle may be moving, when it isdesired-to change gears, the gearswhich are to be brought into mesh, may be first brought to the samespeed whereby the change can be made without danger to the gears..Them'echanism is also designed to make it necessary in. some instancesto use the transmission speed controller before the shift lever can bemoved to change the gears. The mechanism is thus adapted to theemployment. of chauffeurs and operators that are not necessarilyexperts, since they can not shift the gears in such a manner as to stripor otherwise injure them.

The preferred forms of the invent on have been illustrated in theaccompanying drawings, and the details and features thereusual way. Thetransmission speed controller mechanism is mounted for the most partupon transverse bars 19' and 20 which connect the side bars of thevehicle frame 15. Upon the clutch shaft 21 of the vehicle is a frictiondisk or Wheel 22 having its hub 23 splined upon the said clutch shaft21. -The periphery of the disk or wheel 22 is usually provided with afriction tread portion 24.- adapted to engage the face of an adjacentdisk 25 which is set in a plane at right angles to the plane of the diskor wheel 22. The said disk 25 is carried by short shaft 26 journaled atits outer end in frame 15 and at its inner end upon a connecting bar 27which extends from the bar 19 to bar 20. The said shaft 26 is capable ofa slight endwise movement so that the disk 25 may be pressed against theperiphery of the disk or wheel 22. The said shaft 26 is reciprocated forthis purpose by means of a bell crank lever 28 which is fulcrumed at 29upon the cross bar '20. One arm of the lever 28 is usually shorter thanthe other and the short arm is connected pivotally with a collar 30which movably engages a grooved sleeve 31 secured to the said shaft 26.The long arm of the said bell crank lever 28 is connected by a link 32with an arm 33 which is secured to the pedal shaft 34: of the clutchmechanism 17. WVhen the foot of the operator is pressed against thepedal 35 the shaft will be rocked to withdraw the cone of the clutchfrom the cup member thereof, and at the same time the arm 33 will becaused to move the bell crank lever 28 and press the tlhk 25 against theedge of the disk or wheel 22. By connecting the shaft 26 with the drivewheel mechanism, it will be evident that the disk 25 maybe caused torotate the disk or wheel 22 and turn the clutch shaft 2.1. with itsdriving gear at a corresponding speed. The shaft of the said disk 25may.

be connected with the jack shaft of the ordinary motor truck by sprocketor other gearing, or may be connected directly with the shaft which.carries the gear meshing with the differential gear mechanism on therear shaft of the vehicle.

As shown in Fig. 1, a sprocket wheel 36 secured to theshaft 26, isconnected by a sprocket chain 37 with a sprocket wheel 38, mounted upona transverse shaft 39. The said shaft 39 is journaled at one end in abracket 40, carried by the rear axle casing, and at the other end in thecasing of the change gear mechanism 18. One end of shaft 39 is providedwith a bevel gear 4E1 that meshes with a corresponding bevel gear 42secured to the drive shaft within the housing of the change gearmechanism. It will thus be evident that as the vehicle moves, when notdriven by the engine, as for instance upon a down grade, the shaft 39will be turned by the beveled gears and motion will be transmittedthrough the sprocket chain 37 to the shaft 26, and the disk 25 driventhereby, will upon engagement with disk or wheel 22, turn the clutchshaft at a speed in correspondence with the speed of the driving wheelsand their shafts.

The speed of the disk or wheel 22 and the clutch shaft with its drivinggear should be proportioned to the particular speed gear with which thedriving gear is to be brought into mesh. The-re are generally, two,three or more gears in the change gear mechanism for securing thedesired speed in driving the vehicle. The disk or wheel 22 is capable ofbeing changed for accommodating the parts to the speed desired. It willbe seen that when the disk or wheel 22 is in the position shown inFig. 1. that, it will be engaged by the edge portion of disk 25, andwill be rotated faster thereby than when it engages said disk nearer tothe center thereof. The

shaft 21 may thus be driven by shifting the i link 44 pivotally connectsthe said collar with a lever 45 which is fulcrumed to the frame 15 at46. A link 47 connects the said lever 45 with an arm 48 which is securedto a rock shaft 49. Said rock shaft 49 is jour naled upon the cross bar19 and a lever 50 secured to the end thereof rocks the said shaft whennecessary. The said lever 50 is connected by means of a rod 51 with theblocking mechanism for the change'lever, as will be hereinafter morefully described. The said lever 50 is provided'with a hand hold at itsupper end by which it may be moved and a segmental rack 52 is employedfor facilitating the holding of the said lever 50 in its 'adjustedpositions. The said rack may be made of a simple bar with notches in itsedges for engaging a projecting rib or tooth 53 carried by the saidlever 50, but the said rack is preferably made with adjustable means, asshown in Figs. 4, 5, and 6 whereby the position of the said notches maybe varied and adjusted.

'As shown in said Figs. 5 and 6' the rack proper 52 is formed With aseries of elongated notches 54 setat suitable distances from each other,and notched plates 55, 56'

rack bar by bolts 58 which engage slots formed in said plates, asclearly shown in Fig. 5. The notches of each of'said plates may thus beset in proper position over the notches 54 of the rack bar to hold thehand lever in proper position for each change of speed to be made- Ifthere are :three sired in shifting the gears, the disk or wheel' 22 willbe moved to corresponding distances from the axis of the disk 25, tobringthe gears carried by the clutch shaft 21 to the I samespeed as thegears in the gear box 18 with which the connection is to be made.- Thusas shown in Fig. 1. the disk or wheel 22 maybe moved opposite to pointsindicated by the arrows on disk 25. It will be understood of course thatthe device will be capable of use no matter what the number of speedsthe vehicle mechanism may be adjusted to, without departing from thespirit of the invention.

As shown in. Fig. 4of the drawing the disks and their operating meansmay be arranged in a somewhat different manner within the spirit of theinvention. As illustrated in said Fig. 4 the movement of shaft throughits rock shaft 49 may be caused to throw a bell crank lever 59 which isfulcrumed at 60 upon a cross bar of the frame.

yoke block 68 spans the clutch shaft 21 of' the vehicle so as not tointerfere with the same in any way, yet offers a firm support to thesaid bearing 67.. The end yoke is rigidly secured to a cross bar 69which extends therefrom to the side bar of the vehicle frame. The outerend of the shaft 63 carries a sproket wheel 70 whichcis connected by asprocket-chain 71' with a sprocket wheel 7 The said sprocket wheel 72 isusually attached to the jack shaft 73 which is commonly employed upontrucks or like vehicles. though the said sprocket wheel 72 may ifdesired be attached directly to the rear axle of the vehicle.- wished torun the mechanism directly by the rear axle, however. it ispr'eferableto arrrange the parts as shownin 1 of -the 'cure a properturning of" the shaft 21 and 1 also the transmission of equal speeds tothe drawing and as hereinbefore described. The shaft 63 will through theconnections described thus be driven whenever the vehicle is moving.Splined to the said shaft 63. is a friction disk 'or wheel 74, the edgeof which isadapted to be moved across the face of acorresponding."friction disk 75 made fastto the shaft2'l. V-Vhen theshaft 21 is moved longitudinally by the operation of the clutch 17, itcan be caused by a con tinued movement to force the said disk 75 againsttheperiphery offthe disk or wheel 74. The bell crank lever 59 isconnected by a yoke link 76 with a collar 77 which engages an annularbearing on the hub of the friction disk or wheel 74. The said disk orwheel 74 can thus be moved back and forth upon theshaft 63'so as to bebrought opposite the desired points 'on the disk 75 to segears which areto be brought into mesh in making the next change of speeds, whendriving the vehicle. The mechanism is also so constructed that ifdesired, the operator may be forced to set the speed controllingmechanism before he operates the shift lever of the motor vehicle. Asshown in Figs. 4, 8, 9 and 10 the lower end of said shift lever 78 maybe inclosed in a housing 79. The said housing is usually connected withthe side bar of the vehicle'frame by a yoke 80. The usual rack 81 of thebrake lever 82 may al'so be. supported upon said-yoke as shown in Fig.10. The housing 79 is made to inclose the upper portions of the usualstub levers 83 and 84 commonly employed for shifting the gears in thegear mechanism 18. In the type of stub lever shown in the drawings theupper end of each lever 10b is provided with a forked portion 85 adaptedto receive the shift lever 78 when it is bent to one side or the otherupon its fulcrum '86 for accomplishing the gear shifting operation. Theusual springs 87 are carried by each of the stub levers for normallyholding the shift lever 78 in upright central,

be evident that if means is provided for blocking the movement of thesaid stub and neutral position. It will levers, that they may beprevented from shifting the gears until the speed controller has beenoperated. In the drawing a simple 'form of blocking mechanism has beenshown which usually consists of a series of rock shafts 88 journaled inwalls of the said housing 79. Projecting upwardly from each rock shaft88 is an arm 89 which carries at its upper end a head 90. Each head '90is of a suitable length to fit in the space between the upper end of thestub lever which it is to block. and a set screw 91 placed in the wall,of the housing 79. The said arms 8 are preferablv thrown inwardly bylight springs 9'2 .so that. the heads 90 will nor- 1M v 'mally" occupythe spaces, adjacent to the.

stub levers, and prevent their movement until the speed controllermechanism has been set. *In order to move the blocking heads 90 out ofthe way when the shift lever is tobe operated for attaining a givenspeed,

a slide frame 93 is movably mounted in guide ways 94 formed in the lowerenlargedg portion of the housing 79. The said slideframe is connected bymeans of an adjustable rod 51 with the lever 50 of the speed controllermechanism, as clearly shown in Fig. 9. The said slide frame 93-isprovided with a number of cam pieces 96 which are secured upon'theslideby bolts 97 engaging slots 98 formed in" the said frame 93. The

inner edges of saidc am pieces 96 are taperedployed, one being shown asthrown out of blocking position to permit the movement of one of. thestub levers 33, in obtaining the change ofogears, preparation for whichhas been made by the operation of the lever of the speed controller. Itwill be observed that the cam 96 which is opposite the with-v drawnblocking head, is opposite the arm 99 upon the rock shaft thereof. Theother cams 96 are at the same time in distant positions with respect totheir arms 99. The

shifting of the frame 93 bythe movement of lever 50, Will however bringthem into proper position for throwing out the correspending blockingdevices at the proper time. It will thus be observed that the movementof the hand lever 50 to arrange the friction disks in proper relation tobring the gears to equal speeds. will also throw out the proper blockingdevice to, permit a right operation of the shift lever for obtaining thedesired speed in the movement of the vehicle. The coiiperation betweenthe mechanisms thus prevents the shifting of the gears so that any butthe ones which have been brought to the same speed can not be throwninto mesh.

It will be evident that many minor details in the construction of themechanism may be varied and altered within the spirit and scope of thisinvention. In the operationof the mechanisms shown when it is de siredto change the transmission gears for one speed or another, the lever 50is set so as to make things in readiness for turning sponding numberofblocking pieces are em- Y a further pressure thereon will cause thetwo disks to be brought together and the speed with which the clutchshaft is turning will be changed to that of the speed with which thegear, next to be used in the transmission mechanisn1,is being turned bythe movement of the vehicle, and the corresponding turning of the rearshaft, and also the jack shaft in the case of a truck.

The device is especially useful upon motor .trucks and heavy vehiclesand prevents 1njury to the shifting mechanism,especially when operatorsor drivers who have no great experien'ce areemployed. The device is ofcoin-sereadily adapted to any kind of a vehicles of the lighter sortv orpassenger vehicles of any kind, the connection'with the rear axle ispreferably made as shown in Fig. l and the sprocket gears are set within the vehicle frame. I

hat is claimed is:

l. A transmission speed-controlling mechanism comprising in combinationwith driving gears, driven gears, friction disks connected with saiddriving and driven gears, one of-said disks being capable of edge-wiseengagement with the other and movable across the face thereof forvarying the speed of thegears to facilitate their meshing at equalspeeds, when the gears are to be changed. a

A transmission speed controlling mechan sm comprising in combinationwith driving and driven gears, friction disks, one of which is connectedwith the driving gears,

while the other is connected with the driven gears, means for moving,one gear to points at different distancesfrom the axis of the othergear, whereby different speeds will be attained, and the driving anddriven gears which are to mesh will be brought to equal speeds, andmeans for shifting said gears.

3. A transmission speed controlling mechanism for motor driven vehiclescomprising in combination with aclutch shaft, a clutch controllingthepsame, means for operating the clutch, a disk adapted to be turned by"Stud clutch shaft, a cooperating disk, means for driving saidcooperating disk from the driving wheels of the vehicle, and means foradjusting the disks with respect to each other for-turning the clutchshaft when the clutch is disconnected whereby the gears, of thetransmission mechanism will be brought to equal speedswhen they are tobe thrown into mesh.

4. A transmission speed controlling mechanism for vehicles comprising incombination with a clutch shaft, gears connected therewith,.a vehiclepropelling shaft, gears connected therewith, a disk connected with saidpropelling shaft, a disk connected With said clutch shaft, means forsetting the disks.

in different relations to each other and means for forcing themtogether, whereby the gears of the clutch shaft will be brought to asuitable speed with respect to the gears of the propelling shaft forfacilitating the changes of gearing and speed in driving the vehicle. 1

5. A'transmission speed controlling mech' anism comprising disksconnected with the clutch shaft and the propelling shaft of a vehicle,the said disks being arranged in planes at right angles to each other,Whereby the periphery of one disk may be brought against the face of theother for communieating movement thereto, a set lever for moving thedisks With respect to each other, an adjustable rack plate adapted tohold the set lever ingiven positions preparatory to the changing ofgears on the Vehicle, and means for forcing the disks together in uni-"-fying the speeds of the gears to be brought into mesh preparatory tothe changing of gears.

6. A transmission speed controlling mechanism comprising in combinationwith the driving gears of the transmission and the driven gears thereof,of cooperating friction members adapted to cause the gears to turn atequal speeds, and set means for moving said friction members to attaindifferent speeds, a shift lever controlling device'also operated by saidset means and means operated thereby for preventing the shifting of thegears until the speed controlling mecha;

nism has been properly set.

7. A transmission speed controlling mechanism comprising in combinationwith the drlving gears and the driven gears of the transmissionmechanism, of cooperating friction disks adapted to cause the transmission gears to turn at equal speeds, a blocking mechanism for theshift lever of the transmission comprising movable block members adaptedto hold the shifting lever mechanism, a cam member for controlling saidblock members and a lever for operating said cam member, said leverbeing also employed for regulating the relation of the friction diskswith respect to each other.

8. A transmission speed controlling mechanism comprising in combinationwith the driving gears and the driven gears of the transmissionmechanism, of cooperating the friction members must first be set tocause the gears which are to mesh, to move at equal speeds before theshift lever mechanism can shift the gears and change the speed of thevehicle, carrying the transmission mechanism.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand in presence of twoWitnesses.

FREDERICK W. VVOODHULL. Witnesses:

CA'ssELL SEVERANCE, EARLE R. POLLARD.

